US Navy Pilot Rates 10 Fighter-Pilot Scenes In Movies | How Real Is It? | Insider

Vincent Aiello: Oh no, James Bond is dead. Oh no, wait! He flies through the fireball unharmed! Hello, my name is Vincent Aiello. I am a retired United States Navy

fighter

pilot

. He spent about 25 years in service, primarily flying the F/A-18 Hornet and the Super Hornet. I also had the opportunity to fly the F-16 Fighting Falcon or Viper. I had a tour as a TOPGUN instructor. And let's take a look at flying

scenes

from 10 popular

movies

. Steve: Jimmy, he's getting closer to you! Put your mask back on! Vincent: In our first scene here, Harry Connick Jr., turned

fighter

pilot

, fights in his mask.

The masks we wear are very restrictive. Now, of course, they are providing 100% positive pressure oxygen, which is fantastic. But they are still in your face, they squeeze you and you can feel a little claustrophobic. Of course, once you've been flying for a while, you get used to them, but if you start hyperventilating, you might feel like you need to release some of that pressure, and I think that's what's happening here. Yes, they may have taken some liberties with the maneuverability of the F-18 at low altitude and how difficult it can be when you don't know exactly what the cannon does, whether it just turns and stops or turns 40 degrees, 90 degrees.

This is not a screen we have on the F-18. Reserve fuel, which we don't have. When you reach zero, you're done. We don't have parachutes on the F-18 to slow it down like a B-52 or F-5, but it's convincing to throw the parachute into the attacking alien's face. When you almost run out of fuel on a plane, you eject and then, ideally, you're going to get high enough to not hit the wall. He just crumbles into this big puddle of a man. You survive ejection only to break your back upon landing. In flight school, all aviators are taught a PLF, a parachute landing drop.

You want to land on your feet with a little bit of side and then go to your ankles, calves, hips, side and shoulders, and you want to extend it, almost like what a karate maneuver would do. be if you were thrown. I guess they took a

real

parachute and probably a 200 pound dummy and made it land here, which is why it's hanging limp like a scarecrow. Fun movie, but I'll give it a three out of 10. Merlin: The ice is right below us. It has a MiG behind it. He's shooting! To the left, to the left! Vincent: Now, the names that characters in aviation

movies

call each other are actually

real

.

Those are called call signs. They are basically a fancy name for nicknames. Besides being fun and funny, these call signs, or nicknames, are actually really useful. They depersonalize the situation and eliminate ranks. Slider: You have a MiG to your left. To your left! 3 o'clock. Vincent: Talking about every little thing you're doing will just ruin radio. It will make it very difficult for someone to say the important things that need to be said, i.e. "defensive" or "fox three", if you are firing an active missile, "fox two". for an infrared socket. Controller: Maverick is reactivating, sir. Vincent: Now you see Maverick decides to go ahead and get back into the fight, and the ship's controller instantly recognizes him, just because he turns a few degrees to the left.

The radar, the air search radar of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is the AN/SPS-48. It is an air search radar, has a range of approximately 200 miles and at its highest rotation speed is approximately 15 revolutions per minute, or one every four seconds. Well, at that range, with that refresh rate, there is no possible way for this controller to understand that Maverick suddenly jumps back into the fight just because he turns a few degrees to the left and maneuvers backwards. Merlin: Left, left! Vincent: Now, the "MiG-28" in the scene is played by an F-5. A couple of F-5s.

One is two-seater. Now, the F-5 Freedom Fighter, better known as the Tiger II, in real life has a double-barreled cannon mounted in the front of the nose, not a Gatling gun style as shown, and could do a bit more of that. Standard machine gun style sound. But actually, from what they described, that Gatling gun will have a much higher rate of fire. I have never seen an airplane, not even a Russian airplane, that is controlled with the left hand. Iceman: Got it, Mav. A MiG passing between us. Vincent: There are a couple of editing errors. So, for example, you hear Ice Man say, "It's happening between us." And it's a MiG-28 that passes between us, and then you see from Maverick's point of view two planes, one of them passes through the middle.

Well, the other plane is another MiG-28 or F-5, so that didn't really make sense. Slider: You have a MiG to your left. To your left! 3 o'clock. Vincent: Slider in the back seat, saying, "Look at the guys on the left, 3 o'clock." Well, he is facing the right side and, in fact, "to the right at 3 o'clock" would have been the correct thing to say there. Iceman: I'm behind him. I go for it. Vincent: Ice is yelling, "I'm behind him." And then the next clip is the F-5 chasing the F-14, where you can clearly see that it is the F-5 that is behind the F-14 and not the other way around.

So overall, “Top Gun,” of course, is a fan favorite. I've enjoyed it since I was young and I'll have to give this scene, let's call it a seven out of 10. I love that they brought in the F-35B. Relatively new when they filmed this. But my question is, if you had a high-powered rifle and almost unlimited bullets, and you could employ it against someone you were trying to take care of even from 50 feet, 100 feet, why would you go up and pick up a phone? Being with them, where now the gun is unwieldy and he can turn around and stab you in the back with a knife?

You have the advantage. He could have walked away about half a mile and seen the entire scene on his head-up display. You know, we see examples of people trying to hold onto a plane. I have never tried this. Now, walking on the F/A-18 Hornet I sometimes know that the surfaces, well, are smooth, and there are several nooks, crannies and openings that someone could grab onto, much like a climber on a wall, but if To that we add the acceleration of moving planes, the momentum, the wind and all that, it would be quite a difficult task.

I'll give you a one out of 10 for this scene. Doug Masters: And you can deal with me, Doug Masters. Ted Masters: Watch out, son! Doug: Hey, nice shot, Colonel. Anything else you want to send? Ted: Way to fly, Doug. Vincent: That Hollywood thinks that a simple aileron roll is going to defend your airplane from almost anything that's happening, someone chasing you, a shot fired at you... "If you just do a quick aileron roll, you're fine." Yes, not so much. Akir Nakesh: It's time to die, Iron Eagle. Vincent: I don't understand why they can't get the gun to sound right.

I mean, I guess we're all conditioned to hear the sound of individual bullets, but in fact, with a high rate of fire, like the M-61 cannon and the F-14, it fires 6,000 rounds per minute. That's 100 shots per second. No individual bullets are heard; you just hear that "zzz" sound. Ted: You can do it. Vincent: When a plane is exactly at 6 o'clock, in this case there is almost nothing more difficult for the defender. Because no matter what you do in theory, the other planes can follow you. I mean, as long as the performance isn't massively worse on the attacking aircraft.

And yet, we have this scene where Dad, being the good father that he is, just speaks cheerfully: "Come on, Doug, you can do it. Let's take care of this guy. Let's take him out." And magically, the next moment, we have Doug in the F-16 behind the bad guy. In a dogfight, you are limited by physics. I mean, it's a silly thing to say, but you are. I mean, you can't change positions instantly traveling at 200 to 400 miles per hour. You can't just change places suddenly, hit the brakes and he'll fly by. The head-up display is actually actual F-16 HUD symbology.

We don't have to check everything, but you can see the airspeed and altitude, you can see the heading, you can see G. The only thing they confuse, though, is down to the left, you see the letters SIM. That's SIM. That means you are in a simulated war mode. That's what we used to do in training. However, I'll give it a three out of 10 for this particular scene. James Marshall: These MiGs, how far away are they? Vincent: F-15s love to fly on what's called the Eagle Wall. They may have up to 12 eagles on this wall, but what they won't be next to each other, as seen in the image.

They can be a mile or even two miles away from each other, because that way they can't be attacked as easily. Then you see the afterburners appear, and of course Hollywood loves to show any fighter jet on afterburner. You should have an orange glow behind it. But the acceleration here is probably a little artificial. Yes, the afterburner provides some extra oomph, and it's wonderful, it's a lot of fun, but it's not going to be like a drag car coming out of the green light. When we go into combat, one of the things we do is what's called FENCE control, and you quote, "FENCE-IN." And one of the things you do is turn off the anti-collision lights, and at night you turn off the parking lights, leaving just those green night vision goggle-type light strips.

Both the F-15s in this case and the MiG-29s are shown with their navigation lights. Caldwell: It's coming toward us. Countermeasures are activated. Vincent: Next you see the VC-25, which is the name of what we would all call the 747. Air Force One, don't forget, is just the title of that plane when the president is on board. The defensive systems of a VC-25 do not receive much publicity. Of course, why would they? They don't want their opponents to know what the president's protective measures are. I guess there are some kind of expendables like straw and flares.

Why not just fire a bunch more missiles, or why not just sit back and fire the gun? Instead, the next thing we see is this slashing attack on the right wing, where, luckily, it hit engine number 4. Here's the crazy part: OK, you've got this lieutenant colonel sitting next to you. If he is a first officer of my airline, I am a first officer and fully qualified to fly that plane. I'm not going to sit there and wonder where the firelight is or have someone on the ground tell me we need to trim the airplane because... with the rudder trim here.

This guy should be able to say, "Hey, President, I got this, sir." The F-15s firing what I assume would be AMRAAM. That is the AIM-120 air-to-air missile. Pilot: Fox three. Vincent: They call the fox three, which is the correct terminology. The rules of engagement clearly place us in a situation of self-defense. Many exaggerations and liberties taken, let's say, from the point of view of military aviation. We'll give this one a four out of 10. I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure air-breathing jets don't fly through huge fireballs very well. Additionally, we are always dripping hydraulics or fluids of some type that are usually flammable.

So it's not something you want to do. Of course, keep in mind that if you ever knock him into the backseat, be sure to spend time getting him out of his backseat. It's a little shaky from the recoil, and I've just never flown an L-39 with weapons pods. However, I can't imagine that you will feel the recoil the way a machine gunner would. And he's flying with his knees. I actually did this quite often in the F-18. The F-18 has a center lever and it is conveniently located right between your knees. The F-16, on the other hand, has a side stick.

Now, in the F-18, if I was busy with both hands, I never had to defend myself from someone trying to choke me. But if there were times when I needed to adjust my helmet or maybe I was doing something with the throttle and I was writing something on my knee pad, then I could, for a moment, fly the plane with my knees. Of course, in Hollywood, whenever you have the main character on a plane, you can always see his face. No masks. Maybe a clear visor, but you'll never have that dark visor like you're some random bad guy.

I'll give this flight scene a two out of 10. Sorry, James Bond. In fact, they went out, as they did in "Top Gun" and other movies, and filmed actual flight

scenes

on a real aircraft carrier, in this case the USS Nimitz. You have real F-14s, you have real ordinances, you have real deck personnel. They won't bother with the actors. The AIM-54 Phoenix that they depict there, now, the yellow band is a way of telling if it's a live warhead, and that's why it's on the front. And a brown band tells you it's an active rocket engine.

So when you see yellow and brown on that white missile, which white doesn't really matter, you know it's a real AIM-54 war shot. Now, if it was white but with blue stripes, blue means inert. Or if the entire weapon was blue, then you would know that it is also an inert weapon. Here we have the F-14 pilot getting what could only be considered an actual death. Frankly, a zero probably travels about120 miles per hour, maybe. It looks like the F-14 is doing about 300. Frankly, it will be a tough shot for the F-14 pilot, but given the right position and turning slow enough, then that could be done very easily.

Here's a red shirt dealing with the arresting wire. It is usually a green shirt. I'm not sure why they wore a red shirt there. Maybe it was someone under training. But usually the different shirts on the flight deck are important because then, when you can't hear, you can still tell what someone's job is. So, red is orderly. Green is catapult and arresting equipment, as well as squad maintenance. The blue ones are the chock and chain manipulators. The target is security and LSO. Brown are airplane captains. The yellow ones are airplane directors. You have all these different colors.

I'm going to give this scene an eight out of 10. I'm just taking a couple points off. It has to fly away pretty quickly. I mean, the BD-5J Microjet has a top speed of about 320 miles per hour. This whole notion of missiles that can fly by you and continue to chase you to death, now in real life a surface-to-air missile like this will reach maybe close to 2,000 miles per hour. He can go after it, and the ether will hit him or get close enough to detonate him by proximity and take him out, but what he won't do is come here and say, "Oh yeah?

Well, I'll get you," and keep following you. , and if it fails, get angry and come back. The idea that we have these angry missiles that can follow us, in this movie and others, always seemed funny to me because to do that they would have to fly at about the same speed. Just because a plane, and any plane, is diving doesn't mean it's going to sound like a World War II Stuka dive bomber. Guess what? They put particular sirens on those wind-driven planes, and at a certain speed they ended up like that, and yes, we all associate that with death from the sky.

Now, the fuel light here, I actually love it, because the Microjet only carries 30 gallons of fuel. I still love the scene, so I'll give this opening scene from "Octopussy" a four out of 10. Hal Moore: Broken Arrow! I'll say it again, broken arrow! Vincent: "Broken Arrow" is a term used for a nuclear weapon that has been compromised. Maybe you got lost or fell inadvertently or something else. Apparently it means that we are being invaded or are in danger of being invaded, but the idea is that it brings everyone together. It's like calling 911. As he talks, he shows them coming in and attacking.

There is some coordination, because the whole idea of ​​close air support is that you are in close coordination with the people on the ground. You fall right next to them, and in fact, as we see in this scene, sometimes it can happen that you are too close. What you are seeing here is napalm. It does not discriminate, as most weapons are. But if it falls in the wrong place, it will burn anything. And the only thing they didn't quite understand here is that a Mark 77, or a napalm canister, is deliberately not equipped with fins, because what fins do is give a weapon a spin to make it more accurate, for the same reason.

A quarterback spins a football when he throws it. I feel like they are showing the launch plane too low. He shows the fighters going in both directions. Maybe it's a bit exaggerated. You generally don't want that because they could use each other by accident. I'll give it a nine out of 10. It just loses a few points for the reasons we talked about. Pilot: Lima zero one, we have a count of three trucks. Heading east over the bridge. Harry: Understood, Lima Cero Uno. Prepare to participate. Pilot: Ringo has a lock. Hot with firearms. Vincent: What bothers me about this scene, though, is the almost Hollywood expectation that they can inform the audience that somewhere in America, even off the coast of Key West, as shown in this scene, There are fully armed planes flying, doing maneuvers. .

Actually, particularly since 9/11, we have aircraft that are armed on alert at various bases, usually on the coasts, and that's for Noble Eagle, and that's in case we have another 9/11. But for training, it seems to me that they are really Harriers flying in this helicopter. Harry: Recommends using your Mavericks to destroy the bridge. Pilot: Understood. Flight from Lima, change from Mavericks. Pilot: Two. Vincent: Two. OK. You know, normally you want to acknowledge a call that was made, but they felt very scripted. You see the Harriers take off immediately. Assuming they are the ones designating the target, they just need to make sure the laser is continuously on the bridge all the time.

And then when it comes, yeah, I mean, it could be thumbnails that they're popping. It seems quite realistic. The AGM-65 Maverick was designed to attack tanks, so it has pretty good power and targets armored targets, so against concrete, yes, it could work quite well. Of course, the Harrier continues flying later. You've got Dana, the hero's daughter here, and some more shooting and AIM-9 shots. I really love this scene. Overall, I'll give "True Lies" a six out of 10.